Neighborhood Bass Pond Fishing Pretty Well

Grabbed twenty minutes or so and fished the neighborhood pond after sunset, catching four largemouths on a couple of Senko-style worms, having just jaunted over a hundred yards from my doorstep. Two of them hit on the twitch, one of them socked it off the surface, and the largest of about two pounds or better took the worm on descent in my favorite hole at a big run-off pipe.

So it's fishing pretty well, despite that big fish kill last year, but not quite as well as it used to, and the bass are running smaller, two of them about a pound, another a pound-and-a-half. The recent big rain moved a lot of algae out; although the pond got chemically treated sometime ago, which wiped out the algae, it had started coming back. I don't fish here often, but I pay attention to the pond every day, walking my black Lab Sadie.

North Branch Raritan River Fly Cast Sunfish and Rock Bass

 Doing a little evening fly fishing, this time I hoped remaining trout found groundwater releases during the recent heat spells. Some of them do, at least some. I've seen trout in Mercer County's Stony Brook in water so shallow--but cold--their backs barely rested beneath surface during August. There's probably more springs releasing into the North Branch Raritan.

I caught two redbreast sunfish and a rock bass, feeling if a 12-inch bass were to hit thereafter, the smaller fish would really emphasize the larger, but they were fun to set the Muddler Minnow's hook on and play with my two-weight.

Did some target practice. I've been getting OK at fly casting, but tonight I aimed a number of times at an edge of brush in the water. Of course, over-cast the fly, and it might get hung up, but get it right, and the incentive in just this situation involved enough depth underneath to possibly hold a good fish by river standards. A few times I got the Muddler inches from branches and I never hung up.

I wanted to finish the stint fishing the stretch I photographed and posted (above) just before I began fishing the slower water, but Sadie my black Lab swam across with her leash still on (I know better for next time), got it snagged on a branch, and as she struggled to free herself, the leash unhooked somehow, lost to the dark depths. So Sadie got up on the bank and would not budge, freaked out, and I had to walk up and around and back to get her, since water would have gone up to my chest, with wallet and stuff in my vest.

Maybe next time I'll fish above again.